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But Ailes, who had been spending time recently at his mansion in Palm Beach, got his big break working for a former North Palm Beach man.

One of Ailes’ first jobs was at KYW-TV in Philadelphia, where he rose from an assistant’s role to producer of a local talk show hosted by Mike Douglas. He served as executive producer when it became a nationally syndicated show. Ailes was nominated for an Emmy for his work on the show, according to Wikipedia.

Douglas is not talked about much today, but in the ’70s, he was one of the Big Four television talk show hosts, along with Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin and Dick Cavett. Douglas and his wife Genevieve vacationed in Palm Beach County for years before he left the talk show game in 1994.

They moved into a home in Lost Tree Village in North Palm Beach in 1997. When The Post interviewed him in 1998, Douglas was happily living on a golf course, enjoying his retirement and shared his reflections on the stars who appeared on his show, from John Lennon to Marlon Brando to a young golfing phenom named Tiger Woods.

According to Wikipedia, it was another Douglas guest that changed the course of Ailes’ life. When Richard Nixon appeared on the show, Ailes had a “spirited discussion” with the soon-to-be-president about Nixon’s “view that television was a gimmick.” Ailes went to work for Nixon’s campaign, overseeing how the candidate appeared on television, and that was his entry into the world of politics.

By the way, the life of another President — Donald Trump — might have been very different if Mike Douglas had decided not to buy a home in North Palm Beach.

That’s because he first considered a slightly bigger piece of real estate.

“You know, we looked at that place Donald Trump owns now, before he bought it … beautiful place,” Douglas told the Post in 1998. “We decided not to.”

Douglas died on Aug. 11, 2006 at the Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, after becoming dehydrated while playing golf a few days earlier. It was his 86th birthday.

Douglas is buried at Riverside Memorial Park on the Martin County-Palm Beach County line. His marker lists him by his real name, Michael Delaney Dowd, Jr., with an attached logo of a television set with the words “TV Star Mike Douglas.”